Old system, E8400 Core2Duo, in an Abit ix38 Quad GT.

Was happy with the 4x 1gig Corsair memory setup as I was only running 32bit XP until recently…

Upgrade to 64bit Win 7 has me looking at boosting RAM, but wondering how best to get a stable setup. Have 2x 2gig DIMMS on the way, but didn’t really want to shell out for another 2×2.

Any way of pairing the 2×1 and 2×2 to get a stable config…? 3gig per channel has been suggested on another forum, but that would mean combining 2x (2+1). Would 2×1 on one channel and 2×2 on the other channel be more stable???

Unless you’re going to shell out for matched pairs then any configuration won’t be as stable, just stick it all in and hope it works.

I think you’re over-thinking it. Why wouldn’t two banks of 2+1 be stable?

(And why didn’t you just by 2x 4Gb sticks? Cost?)

I went for the pikey solution of buying 2 lots of fast 4gb sticks off the classifieds of overclockers, for basically nothing- my PC is out of date enough that everyone else’s leavings fit it perfectly. Outmoded performance kit loses value fast

Yes, cost… New m/b and system build beckons, so don’t want to splash Christmas cash on expensive old format (DDR2) memory when I’ll be getting up to date hardware sometime in 2015…

Will give it a whizz on the 2x(2+1)

Oh jeez, DDR2…

Have an old Dell system that I ran on any old DDR combo I could get my hands on and it never missed a beat, think I had it at 762Mb at it’s peak. I think it all ran at the boards maximum clock speed so speed difference was never an issue.

On the other hand the Acer with DDR2 would spit the dummy unless it was a very specific brand or something, never bothered in the end and stuck with what I had. Interestingly enough it’s now all redundant since either the mobo or processor took a fit and won’t boot up, will take a look later and if it’s 2Gb DIMMS you can have them for postage cost.

(must warn you though, they came off a board with a Pentium D 820 so don’t expect decent clock speeds and they may not work brilliantly with your existing RAM)